Enoch
did not die according to the Bible. Genesis 5:24 tells us he was taken from
off the earth. The Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible compiled
by seventy-two Hebrew scholars ca 200 years before Christ, reads:
"…(Enoch) was not found for God had translated him and he
pleased God". Paul 1was referring to the Septuagint Greek
in Genesis when he wrote:

Hebrews
11:5-6
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;
and was not found, because God had translated him: for before
his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him.

Therefore,
Paul used the thinking of the time as reflected in the Septuagint that Enoch
was translated, transported, and transformed upon his disappearance.

Vine's
Expository Dictionary says that the Greek metatithemi
[Strong: 3364] meaning 'translated' in Hebrews 11:5 is defined as 'to
transport to another place'. Other dictionaries say it also means 'to
transpose' or 'to convert to something else' such as the Levitical priesthood
when it was changed to the Melchisedec priesthood [Hebrews 7:12]. It indicates
an entire transformation.

Enoch's
vanishing act qualifies for both. Since translation means 'to change places'
or 'to transform', and the name Enoch means 'to initiate' or 'to teach',
we can deduce that Enoch initiated the translation process among men commonly
known as being raptured – the removal of people from earth to heaven
without experiencing death [1 Corinthians 15:52].

'Rapture'
is the Latin Vulgate Bible's word for 'seizing out of'' or 'snatching
away from'. It is the equivalent to the Greek term 'harpazo' in Paul's
letter to Thessaly: …we which are alive
and remain shall be 'caught up'
(harpazo) together with them in
the clouds…[4:17]. Again, the English translation of
the Greek 'harpazo' means to be
caught up or seized out of the earth. Thus, the Church's rapture
is the antitype to Enoch's translation, the prophetic type.

Additionally,
Lot's seizure out of Sodom by angels before God judged it is another illustration
of the meaning of the Greek 'harpazo'.

The
Bible says that the angels had to take Lot and his family by the hands and
almost literally drag them out the city before it blew up. Could this be
how the Church will be raptured off the earth? Will it be immediately prior
to another 911 event on a larger scale? Jesus mentioned Lot's situation
as representative of the endtime judgment [Luke 17:28,29]. So, was Lot's
'in the nick of time' escaping judgment included in our Lord's forewarning
about those days?

Let
me restate the pertinent Hebrew text again which reports Enoch was translated,
and I would like for you to pay close attention to how his rapture connects
to pleasing God and being rewarded by Him, for that is what this Appendix
is about.

Hebrews
11:5-6

5
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;
and was not found, because God had translated him: for before
his translation he had this testimony, that HE PLEASED GOD.
6 BUTwithout faith it is impossible to please him: for he
that cometh to God MUST BELIEVE that he is, and that he is a
REWARDER of them that diligently seek him.

The
opening conjunction 'But' of verse six connects the two verses and endorses
them as a unity. Could verse six, therefore, be intimating that if we
do not have faith like Enoch in a translation or rapture that we will
not receive the REWARD of being caught up out of the earth before the
tribulation? Is being raptured a reward? And is being rewarded the same
as being blessed?

From
the above, we can conclude that Enoch pleased God by believing what
He said. Faith or believing God is the agency causing inclusion into
Paul's hall of faith champions. Therefore, faith is of utmost importance.
If God says something, do it. Don't mess around wondering if He meant
something literally or spiritually. Take Him at His Word literally first
of all because you cannot know until it's too late that it was an error
to take Him spiritually. Doubt robs people of rewards and blessings.

Had
the antediluvians BELIEVED God's Word as Noah did, any of them could
have received the same REWARD of escape from the flood judgment via
the Ark along with Noah and his family. They had the same Adamic information
regarding a coming flood as Noah did. Moreover, they had the witness
of Enoch's monument and translation. Do you see where we're heading
in this homily? If you don't, stay with me and you will.

All
the people in Paul's faith hall of fame were giants. Hence, they pleased
God and were accounted as righteous just like Abraham was. You and I
are also accounted righteous when we believe God [Romans 4:23]. From
verse six above, it states that in believing God faith people are REWARDED
and thus blessed.

So
we can surmise that rewards follow seeking God diligently
as the verse states. In other words, anyone who is not committed to learning
what God's will is in His Word, is a half-hearted lukewarm believer. And
you know what Jesus said about lukewarm believers: …I
will spue thee out of my mouth [Revelation 3:16]. So diligence
to attend to matters related to God is the key to being rewarded by our
Lord.

Thirty
years ago, when I learned about God's book of remembrance while studying
the book of Malachi [4:16-18], I was excited that the Lord looks upon
His people as jewels. I knew I was saved, but oh how precious the sound
was to me about becoming a diamond, or a ruby, or an emerald in His
Kingdom. So I set about to obtain more information on the book of remembrance.

As
I searched for greater meaning, I did not find anything excepting commentators'
interpretation on the verses, which did not satisfy my yearning. The
most I derived from my intense search was that people who were committed
to pressing in to know the Lord better would be His jewels. So, I began
to press in for I was hungry to know God better.

Most
interpretations assume that the book of remembrance is the same as the
book of life wherein all believers are written. Somehow, this did not
ring true with my spirit for it seemed like this book of remembrance
was a special book over and above God's willingness to save anyone who
calls upon the name of Jesus [Romans 10:13].

Although
many things have multiple names, something told me that this book is
not the same as the book of life. To me, jewels are different from semi-precious
stones, and they certainly are different from opaque ones. So I strained
at understanding the real meaning of this book of remembrance. The prospect
of becoming a jewel in God's Kingdom intrigued me.

Over
the years the book's fascination waned somewhat, but not my desire to
become a jewel. God loves His children equally with the same love as
He loves Jesus [John 17:23]. Yet this book in Malachi suggests that
there is something that separates believers. And in all these years,
the sense that the book of remembrance is special has never decreased.
Even from the current copious quantity of literature on the Bible today,
I have never been able to obtain a satisfactory answer to Malachi's
passage. Until this interpretation………

Rewards
According To Our Works

While I was praying about Enoch's translation, the word 'reward' kept
cropping up in my spirit. Hebrews 11:6 has been a major verse I have
used of late in teaching Bible faith to high school and college students
on the Internet. Verse six is a critical one in this endeavor because
it clearly is the means of pleasing God, for …without
faith you cannot please God…. But notice that the
rest of the verse states our rewards are tied to our faith and pleasing
God. Read it again and see for yourself. So the concept of 'rewards'
is connected to pleasing God.

Considering
that Enoch in the New Testament is associated with Hebrews 11:6 and
both verses 5 and 6 are a unit, and considering that he figures prominently
in this vision, I was impressed to meditate upon those verses at length
because I felt like I did not have a complete resolution to the interpretation
of this heavenly visitation. As soon as Jeannette gave me the details
about her open vision, I knew immediately that it was about the rapture.
I had almost total closure without prayer. But as I was writing, I felt
like there was something important I was leaving out. The Spirit would
not let me rest.

Knowing
that Enoch's translation to heaven actually happened, for the Bible
says it did, and knowing that his translation was connected with the
Pillar at Giza which is a memorial to bypassing death as we have seen,
the Holy Spirit stirred up my spirit to do a word study on the words
'memorial' and 'remembrance' for memorials are remembrances. What a
guide we have in the Holy Spirit! He led me to the resolution of this
work of the Lord as well as that of the book of remembrance in Malachi.

When
studying the feasts a long time ago, I learned that the blowing of trumpets
during the Feast of Trumpets at the first fall feast is a 'memorial'
as stated in Leviticus 23:24. Blowing the trumpet at that feast is therefore
a 'remembrance' that the Days of Awe have started, which days end on
the Day of Atonement ten days later. During those ten days, people must
get right with God or be lost forever. That is why the days are titled
Days of Awe and also why the trumpet blows on the Feast of Trumpets
to awaken people that the days have come.

The
trumpets blow to signal that an awesome
time has begun – the seven year tribulation period. During this
period people must choose between serving Jesus or serving the Antichrist.
Choosing Jesus will be hazardous at that time because Jews and Christians
alike will be marked for extinction as the book of Revelation prophesies.
Thankfully, those days will be shortened and will terminate at the closing
of the Gates of Heaven on Yom Kippur when opportunity to enter heaven
ends.

The
Feast of Trumpets has ten titles by which it is called and one of them
is the Gates of Heaven. Jewish tradition teaches that the gates are
opened on the Feast of Trumpets and they close on the Day of Atonement
(Yom Kippur). The vision we are investigating is a picture of this tradition
because Jeannette saw Jerusalem's Wailing Wall known as the Gates of
Heaven open. This is a sign that the vision is a tribulation event.

The
rapture of the 144,000 Jewish converts is the next rapture on God's
agenda of seven raptures. Because the Bride will have already been taken
to her heavenly prepared mansions, she is in hiding in heaven until
God's wrath on sin is completed according to Isaiah 26:20-21. God
has not appointed us(the Bride
of Christ) to wrath, but to obtain salvation
(or deliverance to heaven) by
our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Thessalonians 5:9].

After
the tribulation period is over, the Gates of Heaven close on Yom Kippur
to complete the first resurrection to life. At that time, God's patient
waiting on people to return to Him will be over. Since we do not know
what time it is, I encourage readers who want to be guaranteed a place
in the rapture to enter into a serious intimate relationship with Jesus.
Do it now before it's too late.

The
Days of Awe will be filled with unprecedented trouble and claiming Jesus
is Lord of all will exacerbate difficulty. The overriding theme of all
the messages on this website has been to encourage people not to procrastinate
in making Jesus the Lord of your life. God has been extremely longsuffering
with people over the years, so that He could call out a bride for His
Son and so that people could find out how good He is. But there comes
a point of no return as people found out when the doors were shut to
Noah's ark.

Yes
indeed, God's arithmetic points up the fact that any day now the
fall
feast rehearsals will become reality just like the spring ones did
in 32 A.D. Have we entered the Days of Awe? Many signs point to
September
30, 2008 as having begun Daniel's last week of the Jewish Age. Was
it the one beginning the last Sabbatical week of seven years that
ends the 2,000 year interruption
of the Jewish Age Daniel spoke about in his book [chapter 9]? Some
serious studious people think it was.

All
the feasts of God were dress rehearsals depicting God's set times for
intervening in history to accomplish His redemption plan for the world.
The four spring feasts brought forth the Messiah for His work of redemption
right on schedule. Hence, it is reasonable that the three remaining
fall feasts will occur on schedule. If interested, the feasts are mentioned
in passing in the article on the main page of this website entitled
The Rapture Series.

Considering
that the Feast of Trumpets is a memorial and the Pillar of Enoch
is a memorial, both function as reminders that a terrible time is
coming when God will cleanse the earth by a fire judgment. These
two memorials point to the same thing – a rapture associated
with the Days of Awe. How does this relate to the book of remembrance
in Malachi? Let me explain.

Strong's
Concordance gives the meaning of 'remembrance' [OT:2142: zakar]
in Malachi 3:16 as 'marking so as to be recognized'. Brown-Driver-Brigg's
Hebrew Lexicon [Strong, OT:2146: zikrown]
gives the meaning of 'memorial' in Leviticus 23:24 as 'a reminder' or
'to bring to remembrance'. Both Malachi and Leviticus concur that "memorial'
and 'remembrance' infer the same thing because they come from the same
root word zakar.

Chapter
and verse numbers were added to the Bible quite a while after the Canon
of Scripture was completed. They were added as technical references for
Bible study. According to Wikipedia online encyclopedia, Stephen Langdon
is credited with chapter division and Robert Stephanus for verse division.
It sometimes helps to understand some passages of Scripture if you read
on into the following chapter as if there were no break to see if it pertains
to the one before. Hebrew and Greek texts were not only written without
chapter and verse but also without punctuation. So Scripture passages
must be interpreted with the Holy Spirit's guide.

I
personally believe God inspired the men who divided the books. There are
too many astonishing correlations associated with chapter and verse and
God's contextual messages to be coincidental. For instance, Genesis 22
correlates with Psalms 22, and Bible encoded messages embedded within
certain numbered verses have been uncannily associated with the surface
message of the verses. Moreover, the numerical value of the numbers comport
with the messages also. But that's another issue.

If
you read past the last verse of Malachi chapter three and continue on
without stopping into chapter four, you will find that the last chapter
of the book is about the end of the Jewish Age, i.e., the time of the
final week of Daniel's 70 year prophecy, the seven year tribulation period.
Verse 1 talks about the day coming that burns as an
oven; verse 2 about Jesus the Sun of righteousness coming
with healing in His wings; verse 3 about Jesus treading down the wicked
in judgment; verse 4 about the law of Moses being remembered again as
the Jewish Age picks up where it left off at Jesus' crucifixion; and verses
5 and 6 about Elijah reappearing as one of the two witnesses in the tribulation
period to help Jews correctly discern the times and the changing of the
Jewish body politic back to Temple worship. Does not that sound like the
Second Advent of Jesus?

As
noted in the body of this interpretation, some people believe that
America
is abandoning Israel to support the Arabs. In fact, signs of that happening
are already surfacing. That's why it is thought by some that September
30, 2008 on the Gentile calendar, began
the last seven-year cycle of famine for the Jews. Truly, a famine of
friendship with the nations of the world has begun to plague Israel,
Jerusalem is
certainly a burdensome stone for all people [Zechariah 12:3], and a viable
candidate for the last Gentile world ruler is in the wings. Everything
seems so surreal to me.

I said
all of the above to alert you to the serious possibility that some Christians
are not ready for rapture. Perhaps that sounds like a partial rapture
of the Church, which is a hot topic within Church circles, but it nonetheless
is a serious issue if indeed the book of remembrance signifies that God
has a book in which some people are not written, and hence may not be
blessed by being raptured. Let's find out from the Word who is in that
book.

Malachi
3:16-17

16
Then they that FEARED the Lord spake often one to another: and the
Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written
before him for them that FEARED the Lord, and that THOUGHT
UPON his name.
17 And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day
when I make up my jewels; and I will SPARE THEM, as a man
spareth his own son that serveth him.

Malachi
4:1-2

4
FOR, behold,
the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that
it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that FEAR my name shall the Sun of righteousness
arise with healing in his wings;
…

Fear
in the above verses does not mean scared, but a deep loving respectful
reverence for God, not a casual careless slipshod attitude about Him.
Enough said. The second qualification is how devoted one is to seeking
Him out. Giving God time once a week for an hour is not real devotion.
Would a nod to God fifteen minutes a day qualify? Let me ask you a couple
of questions. What is first place in your life? What turns you on and
excites you? These are the kinds of things that determine how much
you think about
the Lord.

The Holy Spirit's purpose in having me point out this book of remembrance
is to apprise people that there appears to be a connection between one's
attitude toward the Lord and missing the tribulation period. How so? The
'For' opening chapter four of Malachi where we see a day coming that burns
as an oven – Enoch's fire judgment? – infers a connection
to the last part of chapter three that talks about a book of remembrance.
It is a connector word connecting the last four verses of chapter three
with the entirety of chapter four. Are you getting the connection? One
could easily read 'because' instead of 'for' …the
day cometh….. Try it and you will see what I mean.

Given
that a rapture precedes the worst time the world will ever see as Paul
teaches in his first letter to Thessaly and Jesus taught in His Olivet
discourse, and given some people will miss it because they are not ready
like the five foolish virgins in Matthew 25:1ff, is it possible that the
people whose names are written in the book of remembrance at the time
of the rapture will be REWARDED by being
raptured out of the way of God's wrath [Revelation 3:10] in like manner
that Enoch was rewarded by being raptured out of the earth before the
wrath of God fell on sin with a worldwide flood?

The
reward, then, as determined from the last words of Malachi 3:17 is being
SPARED
from the hour of temptation that Apostle John says shall try the whole
world [Revelation 3:17]. Indeed, God said He is going to SPARE His jewels
who are written in His book of remembrance. What is He going to spare
them from? We are told in the next sentence of Malachi 4:1. He is going
to spare them from …the day coming that
shall burn as an oven …that…shall burn them up.
They will be spared the tribulation of the Tribulation Period.

We
have seen that Enoch, the type, escaped the flood judgment by being translated
and hence was rewarded – or blessed if you prefer – because
of his faith as Hebrews 11:5 and 6 intimates; so there might be an antitypical
correspondence with the people written in the book of remembrance escaping
the fire judgment that Enoch's Pillar memorializes.

It
is clear from the above that the book of remembrance memorializes a particular
group of people whom God is pleased with. And the Scripture says that
they are in the book of remembrance because of their deep respect and
devotion to Him as a result of thinking about Him constantly. By interpolation,
it is possible that the reward or blessing of being written in the book
is that they are taken out of the way of the coming fire judgment on sin.
Have you gotten the picture?

God
determines times and seasons and how He rewards people. All I can say
is, are you ready to be raptured? This whole website has been committed
to helping people see the need of being prepared for rapture. Because
God wants to please His children that please Him, pick your stone –
a ruby, an emerald, a diamond, or perhaps a sapphire. All are precious
in God's sight, but you are more precious in His sight than any of them.

Lest
you think it is hard to get written in His book of remembrance, read Appendix
2. It is our tenderhearted Father's loving addendum to Jeannette's visitation
to the Wailing Wall where she received a glimpse of New Jerusalem and
saw the Gates of Heaven open; it is an encouraging prophecy from the Lord,
a holy invitation to rest in His loving care to protect and prosper us
His beloved children even in these times of turmoil and perplexity.

One
last word…………. We may not be able to fellowship
in person, but we can do it vicariously through Holy Spirit power over
the Internet. Thus, in obedience to the command to not forsake gathering
together even though via Internet, we here at Whitestones Ministries are
exhorting you to stay ready …and so much
the more… because we …see
the day approaching[Hebrews 10:25].